The performance of wireless antennas (e.g. antenna, dielectric and via geometries in or on printed circuit board assemblies) is known to be dependent on the precision of these geometries. Particularly at higher frequencies—such as those employed by the IEEE 802.11ad standard (also referred to as WiGig), which employs the 60 GHz frequency band—sensitivity of antenna performance to geometry can be very pronounced. As a result, antennas for use in high-frequency applications are often produced with strict manufacturing tolerances. Adhering to such strict design tolerance requirements, however, increase the difficulty (and therefore the cost and time) of production.
In addition to the challenges posed by strict manufacturing tolerances, the complexity required to successfully design, simulate, prototype, and validate high-frequency antennas into productions limits the number of viable antenna solutions that can be produced because of the cost and time associated with the above-mentioned design cycle, particularly when the cycle is repeated to refine the design. This cycle can limit the pace at which new antennas can be developed to meet different high-frequency antenna requirements.
A further complicating factor in the production of wireless radio assemblies for high-frequency applications is the issue of signal attenuation between the antenna and processing circuitry: leads between antenna and processors are generally kept as short as possible to reduce signal losses. Together, the above-mentioned challenges tend to increase the complexity and cost of manufacturing high-frequency wireless communication assemblies.